Trudie's Reviews > The Overstory

Another hour. Deserts of infinite boredom punctuated by peaks of freakish intensity

Powers doing my review writing for me.

My reading experience of The Overstory often felt like a forced march of The Appalachian Trail while being read poetry. In all likelihood that might appeal to some people, however I prefer a less arduous journey. I tried to escape this book once, flinging it aside at around page 60 but several positive reviews from trusty readers and the growing likelihood that this will make the MB shortlist made me put my hiking boots back on.

This is not my first rodeo with Richard Powers. I read his 2014 shortlisted book Orfeo a novel that deep dives into molecular biology and classical music and combines them in grand esoteric passages that at times seem barely penetrable. Despite this I ended up admiring Orfeo. I had hoped for something similar to occur with this book, particularly as I admire books that find ways to incorporate the hard sciences. Unfortunately, I came away from this wondering if I might have been better served reading Wohlleben's Secret life of trees .

I am aware Powers has a degree in Physics as well as literature and that becomes obvious in sentences like these :

Ten million points flicker in the falling dark, like logic gates of a circuit cranking out solutions to a calculation generations in the making.

Through the armored arch behind the checkpoint, a cell-subtended hallway disappears lengthwise down an optical illusion into forever.

I do admire him for attempting to mesh these disciplines but it makes for a grandiose writing style and a sometimes odd juxtaposition of disciplines. These being not limited to - dendrology, ecology, eco-warfare, computer science, psychology, mythology, poetry, evolution, and taxonomy. This often verges on information dumping and threatens to lose sight of the fact this is suppose to be a novel.

My other major concern with this book was the understandable but ultimately unhelpful craze to anthropomorphise scientific research. Wohlleben's book has garnered much attention but it is far from accepted doctrine to talk of complex tree networks as if they have intention and consciousness. Powers leans heavily upon this, trees "bleed" sap, they have plans to travel north, they communicate intention with each other, they would talk to us if only we were listening. Certainly there is scientific evidence to support communication and symbiotic relationships and much else interesting besides. But it seems to me a fallacy to try to view these findings through a lens of human behaviour. Is that not an egregious form of egotism on our part?

There are far better reviews available that discuss the ecological themes of this book, its' unusual structure, the characters and why Powers might win a place on the Man Booker shortlist. However, I personally subscribe to the opinion that Annie Proulx did this type of book much better with Barkskins. Proulx has a warmth and knack with characters that I think is lacking in The Overstory and I walked away from it with a much greater sense of the epic scope of ecological crisis.

However, it is impossible to spend what ended up being almost two weeks with this book and not find some glimpses of brilliance. I am left with a strong sense of having traveled through some delightful arboretum where tree giants are whispering just out of ear shot. Much like hiking the Appalachian Trial might feel like days of misery and toil for one or two moments of transcendental bliss so goes the experience of reading The Overstory . A slog then but not without occasional rewards.

Leaving you with the oh so wise Dr Patricia Westerfold -

She could tell them about a simple machine needing no fuel and little maintenance, one that steadily sequesters carbon, enriches the soil, cools the ground, scrubs the air, scales easily to any size. A tech that copies itself and even drops food for free. A device so beautiful it’s the stuff of poems. If forests were patentable she’d get an ovation